Nokia X3 Red on Black Mobile Phone on O2 Pay As You Go (PAYG)

* Physical

The mobile has a very pleasurable sliding keyboard that inspires confidence in the owner. The screen dominates the mobile either open or closed. When the screen is operating its colourful and bright. Although many of the background screens are often piano black in colour, that does however improve readability.

The keyboard is designed as sliding stainless steel screen and backlit, making texting in both bright lighting or dim easier to use. It looks as if it has been laser - etched, so the chances of the letters rubbing-off is much reduced.

It is supplied with quality headphones that are easy to wear in your ears. Also it also is supplied with a 2 Gig card.

*Text

Another feature is the raised capacity of the maximum number of messages that can be stored. I had around 470 and above counting!

A useful feature of this mobile is it can sort texts by multiple exchanges between senders and receivers, as well as time and date. This flow of texting between customers is termed as `conversations'. This means making sense of the exchanges much easier to follow.

It can cope with many types of data when sending and receiving MMS, but if you use this with a `pay-and-go, then the maximum size and lengths of media may be limited by your mobile provider.

*Contacts

The way contacts can be arranged is maximised usefulness. You can sort by surname etc. and add a load of other address information. Usefully for monitoring usage is a log of calls; missed calls, received calls, dialled numbers etc. If you are worried about the apparent high number of dialled calls, consider your usage of pay-and-go!

*Settings / organiser /

This is as other mobiles!

*Internet

Thoughtfully, Nokia has applied the mobile version of the Opera browser (Opera mini v 4.2.04). If you have pay and go with some providers, the web access can requires at least £10 a month to allow you access, but I guess you need to check with your provider? You do require usage of a zoom to see the details of web pages, but much of the structure of original web pages comes through. There is at this time a updated version of the Opera Mini available, so if you wish the latest its available!

*Updating

This is a better deal for the customer; both the operating system and the browser can be updated by web access of Nokia. It has USB 2 compatibility with normal and mini connectors. If you do update its OS, then I strongly recommend you install the `Nokia PC suite' software on your pc (free download from Nokia) , then back up your mobiles contents to a pc BEFORE attempting this update.

In my case, I applied the update and discovered that it improved my X3 operating system from version 4.11 to 8.54. With observation i noted that the updates concentrated in the video and camera areas, and a new media player.

*Photography

The main attraction to me is its photographic specification. It can handle 3.2 Meg still images that have a good fidelity in both sharpness and colour. The video is not quite V.G.A, and limited to 15 frames / sec. The ability to transmit picture and video to other mobiles is limited by both providers of sender and received and the account you have.

Amazingly, you can manipulate photos in the camera, without need to access a computer. Its limited, so not very involved corrections are available, but you can, for example, make a dim photograph a lot brighter and boost its contrast.

*Music

This mobile has a media player that can tackle playing mp3's to a high standard. You have the option to sort in several manners, such as name, artists, genres and so on. If you wish to boost the storage over the supplied 2 Gig card, you can go up to 16 Gig, and so store a shed load of your favourite tunes and music. Also the headphones I mentioned earlier are great quality in clarity and bass.

*Summary

If you have an eye on the budget but would like a quality mobile camera phone / music player then I can recommend this model.

Tip, make downloading the settings before you do anything!

I hate to break ranks with the other reviewers but this really is the single most annoying phone that I have ever owned!

Ok, so it does what a mobile ought to do: you can make calls, send texts, take photos and access the web. But, to be honest, that's pretty much the minimum I expect these days.

What drives me to absolute distraction is a basic design fault: the radio on-off switch and the camera shutter switch are both located on the outside body of the phone and are NOT de-activated when you lock the keypad. This means that whenever you pick the phone up you either turn on the radio or take a photo of your hand.

It gets worse. The radio switch is right on the front of the slider and is so sensitive that it's impossible to keep the phone in your trouser pocket because any movement you make - standing up, sitting down, getting into the car, getting out of the car or simply walking down the street - will trigger a startling blast of radio static from your trouser leg until you fish the damn thing out, cursing the day you bought it, and turn it off.......photographing your hand again as you do so. I can't tell you how annoying this can become!

I only got this a couple of months ago but I've already had enough, so I'm off to Phones 4 You to get a replacement. You'll find my Nokia X3 on eBay but for goodness sake, don't buy it!

This phone was bought for my daughter who has learning difficulties and she is finding it very easy to use and has loads more space for pics music etc than her old one